Francisco Suarez
Member
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2007
- Messages
- 83
The MSM attack line of the week is to trash Ron Paul for criticizing Abraham Lincoln on Tim Russert's show last week. This is my first contribution, but i've been arguing several of these points on other forums in defense of Ron Paul so I thought I'd assemble it all in one place here.
CLAIM: "If it wasn't for the Civil War we'd still have slavery!"
RESPONSE: This line is absurd and ignorant. Tim Russert tried it first in his response and Ron called him on it. There are several responses you can make that are effective. Contrary to the myth, war was not necessary to end slavery. Only two countries in the world ended slavery by war: the United States and Haiti, and both were violent bloodfests. The British Empire (which was larger than the U.S. in the 1800's and had large slave populations in its Caribbean holdings) ended slavery peacefully with a compensated emancipation program, enacted in 1833 and peacefully implemented from 1833-1840 on all the British colonial islands.
It is eqaully ridiculous to suggest that slavery would have continued to the modern day for economic and political reasons. Slavery was a notoriously costly and inefficient way of agriculture production and would have died off for economic reasons in the late 19th century as better means of production and technologies became available. Had the U.S. retained slavery any longer than that the entire weight of world opinion would have also condemned it, especially after Spain liberated its last Caribbean slave holdings in the 1870's.
CLAIM: "Abraham Lincoln fought the Civil War to abolish slavery"
RESPONSE: This is one of the most cherished myths of American history. Abraham Lincoln was a shrewd political pragmatist on the issue of slavery. Lincoln himself famously told Horace Greeley that he was fighting the war to "preserve the union" alone and would be willing to keep slavery OR abolish it if it helped that end.
In fact, Lincoln's own actions lived up to his words in this regard. In 1861 Lincoln proposed and almost secured an amendment to the Constitution called the "Corwin Amendment" that would have preserved and protected existing slave states from congressional interference forever! He explained why he supported it in his 1st inaugural address, because at the time he thought it would help "preserve the union." Later in 1865 Lincoln supported the current 13th Amendment to abolish slavery. Why? Because the politics had changed with the war and abolishing slavery helped him to win the war.
CLAIM: If you criticize Lincoln it must mean you support slavery.
RESPONSE: This is a logical non-sequitur used by the MSM and Paul-bashers to tar him with phony accusations of racism. If you hear this argument, call it out! Lysander Spooner, one of the most prominent Abolitionists in America at the time, even wrote a book called "No Treason" to condemn the Lincoln Administration's abuses of the Constitution (http://www.lysanderspooner.org/bib_new.htm).
In 1864 Spooner called Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner a fraud (http://www.lysanderspooner.org/bib_new.htm) for waging the Civil War on false pretenses (i.e. to "preserve the Union" rather than abolishing slavery). And Spooner was absolutely right. Only as victory looked certain did the north wrap itself up in the anti-slavery banner, and they did this for a reason: over 600,000 people lay dead in a violent war. Ending slavery was a moral concilation prize for them to make the massive senseless death all around them seem more bearable.
CLAIM: You can't attack Lincoln because he's Lincoln!
RESPONSE: Yes, they are that stupid. And yes, they use this argument all the time. Aside from pointing out the obvious absurdity of this claim, point out that even those who consider Lincoln a great president have to admit that he was far from perfect. Even those who like Lincoln have a hard time defending several of his actions. Point these out:
- Lincoln unconstitutionally suspended habeas corpus (not unlike Bush is doing now)
- When the federal courts ordered Lincoln to stop suspending habeas corpus (Ex Parte Merryman, 1861) he ignored their orders, violating the constitution again.
- Lincoln had hundreds of opposition newspapers shut down, violating the freedom of the press. This is well documented (see http://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-apos-Wrath-Jeffrey-Manber/dp/1402203985)
- Lincoln ordered a federal judge - William Matthew Merrick - placed under house arrest in 1861 for issuing a contempt of court order against a General who was conscripting underage minors into his army. (http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2007/summer/merrick.html)
- Lincoln arrested and deported ex-Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham, a leader of the northern anti-war faction and the Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio
- Lincoln believed that emancipation had to be accompanied by colonization - a horribly racist and backwards policy of deporting freed slaves back to Africa and to colonies in the Caribbean. Lincoln attempted several colonization efforts during the Civil War. The most notorious was an attempt to relocate several hundred recently freed slaves to an island off the coast of Haiti. Most of the colonists starved to death, and the U.S. navy had to rescue the survivors in 1864.
- Lincoln looked the other way while several of his top Generals to committed horrific war crimes against civilians and POWs. Some of these are well known, like Sherman's march through Georgia. Others are more obscure, like the "Immortal 600" - a case where 600 confederate POWs were marched out as a "human shield" against Confederate batteries that were attacking a Union fortification (http://www.historynet.com/magazines/american_civil_war/3034106.html) In total, more prisoners starved to death in the northern camps like Point Lookout, MD, and Elmira, NY than in the southern camps like Andersonville. While Lincoln did not personally condone many of these atrocities, they all happened on his watch as Commander-in-Chief
CLAIM: Ron Paul doesn't know American history
RESPONSE: Several MSM types including Shuster on MSNBC this morning have made this claim. It is ridiculous on several counts. First, it is impossible to assess Ron Paul's knowledge of American history based on a 20 second soundbyte response from Tim Russert's interview. This is especially true since Russert kept interrupting him and cutting off his answers.
Second, when Ron Paul has been given a chance to elaborate in greater depth he has shown a far better understanding of American history than his attackers. This morning Shuster tried the "You can't attack Lincoln because he's Lincoln" line, and Paul responded with a barrage of historical facts that reveal he has a far deeper understanding of American history than most politicians and commentators. He referred to specific faults of Lincoln's war policy, quoted Lysander Spooner, and gave Shuster a reading list. The dumbfounded Shuster could only repeat the same line. This attack is another variation of the exact same thing they did last spring when Rudy Giuliani accused Paul of not understanding 9/11. The media pounced on him over the "blowback" line, but as the facts filtered through it turned out that Paul knew exactly what he was talking about and Rudy was the ignorant one.
CLAIM: Most historians disagree with Ron Paul's interpretation of the civil war
RESPONSE: Notice that everyone who uses this line never gives any names for those historians. Don't be mistaken - they do exist, but the people who use this line can't ever name them. So the first response is to ask for names and specifics. If they do give you names, they will most likely be from one of two groups.
(1) Neocon Lincoln hagiographers - these "historians" are really political propagandists who write puffy pseudo-histories about Lincoln in order to support the current Bush neocon war agenda. Neocons love Lincoln because they use him as precedent to justify the worst abuses of the current war: suspending habeas corpus, indefinite arrests without trial, military tribunals, domestic spying, and even torture and war crimes like Abu Gharib. The neocon Lincoln crowd has deep, long-running connections to the Bush regime. One of the worst is Michael Knox Beran of the Manhattan Institute, who recently wrote an article using Lincoln to justify the entire neocon agenda (http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-10-23mkb.html). Another of the worst is Harry Jaffa, a student of Leo Strauss - the philosophical godfather of neoconservatism. Other prominent neocon pundits who use Lincoln to justify neoconservatism include David Frum, Dinesh D'Souza, Larry Schweikert, Mackubin Thomas Owens, Ken Masugi, and - yes - Rudy Giuliani himself. When you see names like these note that they are not real historians but propagandists for the worst offenses of the Bush presidency.
(2) Statist historians - this crowd is a bit trickier because it includes many real historians with actual academic credentials. These are people like Doris Kearns Goodwin, Eric Foner, and James McPherson who write about civil war history for a living. In case you haven't noticed yet, these historians also tend to be from the extreme political left. Foner and McPherson are both self-described communists/socialists. Goodwin is famous for her appearances as a left wing pundit on PBS. Like the neocons, many of these historians like Lincoln because of their political views although for entirely different reasons. They don't like Lincoln for his suspense of habeas corpus, but they do like the fact that he enlarged the federal government and centralized its power. In their view, Lincoln's greatness comes from the fact that he established the "imperial presidency" cleared the way for later liberals like Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. While their disagreement with Paul is likely to be less vitriolic than the aforementioned neocons, it is true that their "views" of history differ from his just the same. If faced with this, point out that there is no single "official" history of the United States and that historians disagree all the time. You can also respond to these types in a way that generally doesn't work with the neocons: point out Lincoln's faults like suspending habeas corpus. Even though they like Lincoln, they are more likely to concede his faults like that.
CLAIM: Ron Paul is a crazy old crank who's trying to refight the Civil War!
RESPONSE: This is the most dishonest of the media attacks on Ron Paul over Lincoln because the exact opposite is true. Ron Paul never once brought up Lincoln or the Civil War on his own. The crazy old crank who thought it was a good idea to refight the Civil War is none other than the MSM's own Tim Russert!
Russert is the one who asked the Civil War question and Paul, before he was rudely interrupted by Russert's next line, gave an honest, candid answer. The same thing happened with Shuster. Ron Paul did not call in to that show to pick a fight over Lincoln. Shuster called Paul to "demand" that he recant his answer to Russert's Lincoln question! It is the media itself that keeps bringing the Civil War into the debate, in part to distract attention away from Ron Paul's views on the CURRENT WAR. Ron Paul cannot be held at fault for politely answering when the media keeps asking him about Lincoln, but the media is at fault for asking about Lincoln instead of the current issues of the day and then trying to blame Ron Paul for it.
ADDENDUM: Reading List for more Lincoln talking points:
1. "Lincoln without Rhetoric" by Frank Meyer (http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3ab9241a6271.htm) - Good for rebutting the neocons. This is a series of articles that appeared in National Review in the 1960's when it was still a conservative publication. Then senior-editor Frank Meyer succinctly explained why Lincoln's administration was bad for the Constitution and limited government despite freeing the slaves. In response, he was lambasted with the neocon line by Harry Jaffa (yep - the same neocon guy who's still around today). The link also includes Meyer's rebuttal of Jaffa.
2. "No Treason" and "Letter to Charles Sumner" by Lysander Spooner (linked above) - essays by the famous abolitionist Lysander Spooner, which explain the immorality of Lincoln's war and why no true abolitionist should support it.
3. "Lincoln's Wrath" by Jeffrey Manber and Neil Dahlstrom - well-documented book about how the Lincoln adminsitration suppressed the freedom of the press.
4. "All the Laws But One" by William Rehnquist - history of liberty in times of war with an emphasis on Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus. Rehnquist writes from a pro-government viewpoint, but lots of good information and facts
5. "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free men" by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel - A libertarian historian's view of the Civil War
6. "Yankee Leviathan" by Richard Franklin Bensel - an economic history of the statist tax and monetary policies of the Lincoln Administration and subsequent Republican presidents in the late 1800's.
7. "The Real Lincoln" by Thomas DiLorenzo - a critical biography of Lincoln written from a libertarian perspective
8. "THe Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" by Thomas Woods - a libertarian-perspective version of United States history that challenges most conventional statist myths. Includes a section on the Civil War.
9. "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution" by Kevin Gutzman - a pro-constitutionalist history of the U.S. judicial system that critiques many statist myths about the judiciary.
10. "War Crimes Against Southern Civilians" by Walter Brian Cisco and "With Blood and Fire" by Michael R. Bradley - historical accounts of the war crimes and atrocities that happened during the Civil War, including many on Lincoln's watch. Includes many incidents that make Abu Gharib look like a walk in the park.
CLAIM: "If it wasn't for the Civil War we'd still have slavery!"
RESPONSE: This line is absurd and ignorant. Tim Russert tried it first in his response and Ron called him on it. There are several responses you can make that are effective. Contrary to the myth, war was not necessary to end slavery. Only two countries in the world ended slavery by war: the United States and Haiti, and both were violent bloodfests. The British Empire (which was larger than the U.S. in the 1800's and had large slave populations in its Caribbean holdings) ended slavery peacefully with a compensated emancipation program, enacted in 1833 and peacefully implemented from 1833-1840 on all the British colonial islands.
It is eqaully ridiculous to suggest that slavery would have continued to the modern day for economic and political reasons. Slavery was a notoriously costly and inefficient way of agriculture production and would have died off for economic reasons in the late 19th century as better means of production and technologies became available. Had the U.S. retained slavery any longer than that the entire weight of world opinion would have also condemned it, especially after Spain liberated its last Caribbean slave holdings in the 1870's.
CLAIM: "Abraham Lincoln fought the Civil War to abolish slavery"
RESPONSE: This is one of the most cherished myths of American history. Abraham Lincoln was a shrewd political pragmatist on the issue of slavery. Lincoln himself famously told Horace Greeley that he was fighting the war to "preserve the union" alone and would be willing to keep slavery OR abolish it if it helped that end.
In fact, Lincoln's own actions lived up to his words in this regard. In 1861 Lincoln proposed and almost secured an amendment to the Constitution called the "Corwin Amendment" that would have preserved and protected existing slave states from congressional interference forever! He explained why he supported it in his 1st inaugural address, because at the time he thought it would help "preserve the union." Later in 1865 Lincoln supported the current 13th Amendment to abolish slavery. Why? Because the politics had changed with the war and abolishing slavery helped him to win the war.
CLAIM: If you criticize Lincoln it must mean you support slavery.
RESPONSE: This is a logical non-sequitur used by the MSM and Paul-bashers to tar him with phony accusations of racism. If you hear this argument, call it out! Lysander Spooner, one of the most prominent Abolitionists in America at the time, even wrote a book called "No Treason" to condemn the Lincoln Administration's abuses of the Constitution (http://www.lysanderspooner.org/bib_new.htm).
In 1864 Spooner called Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner a fraud (http://www.lysanderspooner.org/bib_new.htm) for waging the Civil War on false pretenses (i.e. to "preserve the Union" rather than abolishing slavery). And Spooner was absolutely right. Only as victory looked certain did the north wrap itself up in the anti-slavery banner, and they did this for a reason: over 600,000 people lay dead in a violent war. Ending slavery was a moral concilation prize for them to make the massive senseless death all around them seem more bearable.
CLAIM: You can't attack Lincoln because he's Lincoln!
RESPONSE: Yes, they are that stupid. And yes, they use this argument all the time. Aside from pointing out the obvious absurdity of this claim, point out that even those who consider Lincoln a great president have to admit that he was far from perfect. Even those who like Lincoln have a hard time defending several of his actions. Point these out:
- Lincoln unconstitutionally suspended habeas corpus (not unlike Bush is doing now)
- When the federal courts ordered Lincoln to stop suspending habeas corpus (Ex Parte Merryman, 1861) he ignored their orders, violating the constitution again.
- Lincoln had hundreds of opposition newspapers shut down, violating the freedom of the press. This is well documented (see http://www.amazon.com/Lincoln-apos-Wrath-Jeffrey-Manber/dp/1402203985)
- Lincoln ordered a federal judge - William Matthew Merrick - placed under house arrest in 1861 for issuing a contempt of court order against a General who was conscripting underage minors into his army. (http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2007/summer/merrick.html)
- Lincoln arrested and deported ex-Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham, a leader of the northern anti-war faction and the Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio
- Lincoln believed that emancipation had to be accompanied by colonization - a horribly racist and backwards policy of deporting freed slaves back to Africa and to colonies in the Caribbean. Lincoln attempted several colonization efforts during the Civil War. The most notorious was an attempt to relocate several hundred recently freed slaves to an island off the coast of Haiti. Most of the colonists starved to death, and the U.S. navy had to rescue the survivors in 1864.
- Lincoln looked the other way while several of his top Generals to committed horrific war crimes against civilians and POWs. Some of these are well known, like Sherman's march through Georgia. Others are more obscure, like the "Immortal 600" - a case where 600 confederate POWs were marched out as a "human shield" against Confederate batteries that were attacking a Union fortification (http://www.historynet.com/magazines/american_civil_war/3034106.html) In total, more prisoners starved to death in the northern camps like Point Lookout, MD, and Elmira, NY than in the southern camps like Andersonville. While Lincoln did not personally condone many of these atrocities, they all happened on his watch as Commander-in-Chief
CLAIM: Ron Paul doesn't know American history
RESPONSE: Several MSM types including Shuster on MSNBC this morning have made this claim. It is ridiculous on several counts. First, it is impossible to assess Ron Paul's knowledge of American history based on a 20 second soundbyte response from Tim Russert's interview. This is especially true since Russert kept interrupting him and cutting off his answers.
Second, when Ron Paul has been given a chance to elaborate in greater depth he has shown a far better understanding of American history than his attackers. This morning Shuster tried the "You can't attack Lincoln because he's Lincoln" line, and Paul responded with a barrage of historical facts that reveal he has a far deeper understanding of American history than most politicians and commentators. He referred to specific faults of Lincoln's war policy, quoted Lysander Spooner, and gave Shuster a reading list. The dumbfounded Shuster could only repeat the same line. This attack is another variation of the exact same thing they did last spring when Rudy Giuliani accused Paul of not understanding 9/11. The media pounced on him over the "blowback" line, but as the facts filtered through it turned out that Paul knew exactly what he was talking about and Rudy was the ignorant one.
CLAIM: Most historians disagree with Ron Paul's interpretation of the civil war
RESPONSE: Notice that everyone who uses this line never gives any names for those historians. Don't be mistaken - they do exist, but the people who use this line can't ever name them. So the first response is to ask for names and specifics. If they do give you names, they will most likely be from one of two groups.
(1) Neocon Lincoln hagiographers - these "historians" are really political propagandists who write puffy pseudo-histories about Lincoln in order to support the current Bush neocon war agenda. Neocons love Lincoln because they use him as precedent to justify the worst abuses of the current war: suspending habeas corpus, indefinite arrests without trial, military tribunals, domestic spying, and even torture and war crimes like Abu Gharib. The neocon Lincoln crowd has deep, long-running connections to the Bush regime. One of the worst is Michael Knox Beran of the Manhattan Institute, who recently wrote an article using Lincoln to justify the entire neocon agenda (http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-10-23mkb.html). Another of the worst is Harry Jaffa, a student of Leo Strauss - the philosophical godfather of neoconservatism. Other prominent neocon pundits who use Lincoln to justify neoconservatism include David Frum, Dinesh D'Souza, Larry Schweikert, Mackubin Thomas Owens, Ken Masugi, and - yes - Rudy Giuliani himself. When you see names like these note that they are not real historians but propagandists for the worst offenses of the Bush presidency.
(2) Statist historians - this crowd is a bit trickier because it includes many real historians with actual academic credentials. These are people like Doris Kearns Goodwin, Eric Foner, and James McPherson who write about civil war history for a living. In case you haven't noticed yet, these historians also tend to be from the extreme political left. Foner and McPherson are both self-described communists/socialists. Goodwin is famous for her appearances as a left wing pundit on PBS. Like the neocons, many of these historians like Lincoln because of their political views although for entirely different reasons. They don't like Lincoln for his suspense of habeas corpus, but they do like the fact that he enlarged the federal government and centralized its power. In their view, Lincoln's greatness comes from the fact that he established the "imperial presidency" cleared the way for later liberals like Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. While their disagreement with Paul is likely to be less vitriolic than the aforementioned neocons, it is true that their "views" of history differ from his just the same. If faced with this, point out that there is no single "official" history of the United States and that historians disagree all the time. You can also respond to these types in a way that generally doesn't work with the neocons: point out Lincoln's faults like suspending habeas corpus. Even though they like Lincoln, they are more likely to concede his faults like that.
CLAIM: Ron Paul is a crazy old crank who's trying to refight the Civil War!
RESPONSE: This is the most dishonest of the media attacks on Ron Paul over Lincoln because the exact opposite is true. Ron Paul never once brought up Lincoln or the Civil War on his own. The crazy old crank who thought it was a good idea to refight the Civil War is none other than the MSM's own Tim Russert!
Russert is the one who asked the Civil War question and Paul, before he was rudely interrupted by Russert's next line, gave an honest, candid answer. The same thing happened with Shuster. Ron Paul did not call in to that show to pick a fight over Lincoln. Shuster called Paul to "demand" that he recant his answer to Russert's Lincoln question! It is the media itself that keeps bringing the Civil War into the debate, in part to distract attention away from Ron Paul's views on the CURRENT WAR. Ron Paul cannot be held at fault for politely answering when the media keeps asking him about Lincoln, but the media is at fault for asking about Lincoln instead of the current issues of the day and then trying to blame Ron Paul for it.
ADDENDUM: Reading List for more Lincoln talking points:
1. "Lincoln without Rhetoric" by Frank Meyer (http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3ab9241a6271.htm) - Good for rebutting the neocons. This is a series of articles that appeared in National Review in the 1960's when it was still a conservative publication. Then senior-editor Frank Meyer succinctly explained why Lincoln's administration was bad for the Constitution and limited government despite freeing the slaves. In response, he was lambasted with the neocon line by Harry Jaffa (yep - the same neocon guy who's still around today). The link also includes Meyer's rebuttal of Jaffa.
2. "No Treason" and "Letter to Charles Sumner" by Lysander Spooner (linked above) - essays by the famous abolitionist Lysander Spooner, which explain the immorality of Lincoln's war and why no true abolitionist should support it.
3. "Lincoln's Wrath" by Jeffrey Manber and Neil Dahlstrom - well-documented book about how the Lincoln adminsitration suppressed the freedom of the press.
4. "All the Laws But One" by William Rehnquist - history of liberty in times of war with an emphasis on Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus. Rehnquist writes from a pro-government viewpoint, but lots of good information and facts
5. "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free men" by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel - A libertarian historian's view of the Civil War
6. "Yankee Leviathan" by Richard Franklin Bensel - an economic history of the statist tax and monetary policies of the Lincoln Administration and subsequent Republican presidents in the late 1800's.
7. "The Real Lincoln" by Thomas DiLorenzo - a critical biography of Lincoln written from a libertarian perspective
8. "THe Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" by Thomas Woods - a libertarian-perspective version of United States history that challenges most conventional statist myths. Includes a section on the Civil War.
9. "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution" by Kevin Gutzman - a pro-constitutionalist history of the U.S. judicial system that critiques many statist myths about the judiciary.
10. "War Crimes Against Southern Civilians" by Walter Brian Cisco and "With Blood and Fire" by Michael R. Bradley - historical accounts of the war crimes and atrocities that happened during the Civil War, including many on Lincoln's watch. Includes many incidents that make Abu Gharib look like a walk in the park.
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